


Lost in the Dark

by Primrose_Chase_Foster



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: Book: Anne of Windy Poplars, Book: Anne's House of Dreams - L. M. Montgomery, F/M, Green Gables
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:00:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23992687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Primrose_Chase_Foster/pseuds/Primrose_Chase_Foster
Summary: Leslie Moor's always longed for more in her life, seeing her best friend get married and have a child reminds her of the life she can never have. Until the day her husband dies...
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	Lost in the Dark

After dark Leslie walks along the shore. She sets herself on a rock and sits there, watching the waves crash along the shore. She looks up and sees her friend’s, Anne Blythe’s, house lit up, not far from the cliff that Leslie is sitting under.  
In her mind she can picture Anne and her husband laughing and talking, bright smiles on their faces. Maybe they were thinking of what to name their baby.  
Leslie had always thought that it was a beautiful house, but when the Blythes had moved in, it had seemed… transformed. Everyday the walls of the house soaked up the love and happiness and radiated it for miles. Anyone who could see it knew it was a happy place.  
Leslie loved to be in the little house, but it always chagrined her. It reminded her of the dreams she had that would never be fulfilled.  
Staring up at it now, Leslie watched the shadow of Gilbert Blythe laugh, and as she watched, a tear ran down her face. She quickly looked around her to double check she was alone, then let more follow the footsteps of the first tear.  
Her own house would never hold love or happiness, all it would ever hold is the weight of broken dreams. 

The next day, which is Easter, Leslie plucks a goose and cooks it, makes two apple pies, and brussels sprouts. She sets two plates across from each other and put one kerosene lamp in the middle of the table. She sets everything out, hoping nothing will displease her husband. He walks in and the first thing he grabs is the apple pie. Leslie sighs inwardly, the health of her husband was in her hands, but there was nothing she could do because any time he eats something he doesn’t like or she doesn’t cook something he wanted, he throws a temper-tantrum.  
After eating half of the pie, he gets a horrible stomach ache. “Leslie, get the doctor!”  
“Get the doctor? Dick, you ate too much pie, that’s all, there is no need to drag Doctor Blythe down here for a full stomach!” Dick started crying and screaming and Leslie grabbed her coat and jacket, realizing she had no choice but to call for the doctor.  
Hurriedly, she rushed to the cheery Blythe house and knocked. A smiling Anne answered the door.  
“Leslie! Come in! Oh, please meet my friend Lewis! I taught him his senior year in high school when I was at Windy Poplars!”  
Leslie can see the happy people inside the room but ignores them, “Doctor Blythe, Dick has a stomach ache. It’s nothing, he just had too much pie and needs pain meds.” Leslie says, cautious because she didn’t want anyone to know just how much of a baby Dick is. She didn’t want Gilbert to know, but she knew she didn’t exactly have a choice.  
“Yes, of course!” Gilbert lightly caress Anne’s arm as he tells her that he shouldn’t be very long. Before Leslie and the doctor leave, however, a young man speaks up.  
“Gilbert, if it’s nothing serious could I come with you? I have always had an interest in the practice.” The boy has brown hair and a young face.  
“Sure.” Gilbert agrees. Leslie groans inwardly. How was she supposed to explain the sobbing mess of a husband that will be laying on the floor when they get to her house? 

As soon as Gilbert looked at Dick, who was on the floor like a baby, he rushed him into bed.  
“What’s wrong, Gilbert?” Leslie asked.  
“I don’t know. What did he do today?”  
“I have no idea. He doesn’t tell me anything.” She looked down at her husband. He was hardly recognizable with the gray and clammy look he was wearing, every few seconds a groan would escape his slightly parted mouth. Leslie was… just by looking at Leslie one could not figure out what thoughts went through her head. Clearly, Gilbert was at a loss of what to do. The boy, well, he was obviously disgusted, but his eyes held a note of cautious curiosity.  
“Lewis,” Gilbert addressed the boy, “Can you rush home and alert Anne of the situation? Tell her I don’t know when I’ll be back. Lewis, you can stay there if you want, or you could come back here.”  
“I’ll be here, Doctor.” Lewis gave a small salute and rushed into the evening.  
Ten minutes later Lewis came back with Leslie’s spirited friend, Anne.  
“I sent everybody home.” she hurriedly explains when she sees the surprise on her husband’s face.  
“Anne, you shouldn’t be here! Not with the baby-”  
“Gilbert, I couldn’t stay there. I’m here to talk to Leslie. Leslie, you can stay at our house, if you want.”  
“No. I’ll stay here with my husband.”  
Lewis gave her an odd look. Cleary this girl was stuck in a marriage without love. And yet… she was devoted to taking care of this man. 

For three days Dick lay in bed, running a high fever, never able to sleep longer than an hour, constantly groaning. Nothing Gilbert did broke the fever. Then, one day, Gilbert declared him dead.  
All Leslie could do was stand there. Then, she started to sway. Lewis, who was the closest person to her, grabbed her and helped her sit down.  
Dead.  
Her husband was dead.  
After twelve years, her husband was dead.  
After disappearing and coming back, he was dead.  
Gone.  
Leslie no longer had to care for him.  
No emotions stirred in Leslie. Anne graciously offered to have Leslie stay at her home or to stay here with Leslie. But all Leslie wanted was to be alone. For what felt like the first time in her life.  
She had been dreaming of it for the past twelve years, but being alone was not all that it had promised. With an empty house, no one to care for except herself, Leslie lay down and fell asleep on the couch. 

Leslie turned when someone had called her name. Lewis came running towards her. “I’ve been looking for you!”  
“Why are you looking for me?”  
“Because I wanted to know how you’re doing. It looks like you haven’t changed much.” No. She hadn’t changed much.  
It had been six months since Dick Moore had died and Leslie had kept to herself except for the few visits that Anne, Captain Jim, and Miss Cornielia had forced. She wore black every day and carried herself as a widow, even if she hadn’t lost someone that she had loved that day. She hadn’t gotten to say goodbye to Lewis, not that she was complaining, he had left the morning after Dick’s death.  
“Leslie,” Lewis said, importunately interrupting her thoughts, “how have you been? Really?”  
Truthfully, horrible. She had no one left in her life because, even if Dick was dogmatic, she had spent 12 years caring for the man and she didn’t know what to do now.  
Not to add, she knew that gossip had gone around the small town. Her friend Cornilia had done her best to quench the slander, but there was only so much she could do.  
But all she said was, “I have carried myself as a widow should.” She tried to walk past him but he lightly grabbed her arm.  
“That’s not an answer, Les.”  
“Don’t. Touch. Me.” Lewis, who was staring into her blue eyes intensely, released his grip when he heard the tone in her voice.  
As she walked away he called, “Meet me at the shore tonight so we can talk!”

The next day Anne comes over, alone.  
“I left the baby with Lewis, he really wanted to watch Matthew. Speaking of Lewis, he’s planning on staying here for a couple of months.”  
“You must be enjoying that.”  
“Yes, I am.” After a pause Anne speaks, “Leslie, you don’t understand him. He wants to help.”  
“Well I don’t see how he could help. He can’t bring Dick back from the dead.”  
“No, I suppose he can’t, but… you don’t want Dick back.” Anne said those last words in a whisper, as though she was afraid to say them.  
Leslie’s marriage was something that Anne and her had never discussed. In fact, Leslie had never talked about it to anyone.  
“Maybe I don’t want him back, Anne, but there is still nothing anyone can do. I’m still here, a widow, soon the town will probably force me to do something. Remarry or sell the house and live with a friend.”  
“Then what, Leslie?”  
“Then I do what they want.”  
“Leslie Moore. As your friend I say that you could never do that. You are Leslie Moore, a strong and independent woman who takes orders from no one, you are of the Race of Joseph. You are only twenty-eight, you have a long life ahead of you.” Anne said decidedly yet pensively  
“Yes. I suppose I do. The sunset is beautiful out there.” Leslie speaks. 

The next week Leslie was dragged down to Captain Jim’s lighthouse where she hung out with Captain Jim, Anne and Gilbert, Lewis, Miss Cornelia, and a man named Marshall Elliot, who has a beard as long as Gimli’s.  
As the group normally does they shared stories and enjoyed upbeat arguments. The latter of which normally revolved around Miss Cornelia and Captain Jim. Near the end of the night the group was rewarded with Captain Jim’s violin and Marshall's singing.  
Gilbert took Anne by the waist and they clumsily danced around the room. The room was full of laughter and merriment as Lewis boldly went up to Leslie.  
“May I have the honor of this dance?”  
Leslie laughed and accepted the hand he offered. Around and around they spun, laughing and dancing.  
During the end of the night Leslie realized something. And she couldn’t let this something go, as much as she tried to tell herself she could. That she should. But she couldn’t and deep in her heart she knew she shouldn’t.  
So she took a step back and laughed. “I can’t go on dancing like this! Captain Jim, could I have some water? I’m going to get some fresh air!”  
Gratefully, Leslie accepted the glass of water Captain Jim gave her and cooled down on his porch.  
As she had expected, Lewis came a minute later, and rested his arms on the rail. They stood there, watching the ocean crash upon the shore, hearing the roar of the waves as laughter and music sauntered through the open door of the lighthouse.  
As the light from the moon shone on Lewis’s face, Leslie saw the hope and happiness that was beautifully etched into his features.  
“Lewis.”  
He straightens and smiles, “Yes?”  
“I’m sorry I never met you that day, at the beach. When you first came.”  
He smiles, but it looks a little sad. “That’s okay.”  
“I was afraid. Afraid to let anyone into my life. In my history everyone I start to love is taken from me. Even those I never love are taken.”  
“I won’t leave you. Even when you don’t show up. I’ll still push my way into your life.”  
Leslie shakes her head, “All night, I’d thought of you.”  
“Well I thought of you all night. That's what friends do. They think of the other.”  
“I want to thank you.” she says, finally letting down her stoical guard.  
“For what?”  
She leaned her head on his shoulder and told him, “For being my friend. For showing me that I need friends. When you arrived here you didn’t know me, but you never seemed to judge me. When you came back you wanted to make sure I was okay. Even when I pushed you away, you came back.”  
“Les, I came for you, I wanted to make sure you were okay. Seeing Anne and Gilbert and their baby was just a bonus, I wanted to make sure you were okay. Even before your husband passed away, you didn’t seem entirely okay.”  
Leslie stared into his brown eyes, so deep, so beautiful. “I wasn’t okay. When I was a child I lost my brother, and ever since then it seemed like the world was beating me down. Until tonight.”  
“I’m sorry,” Lewis spoke.  
“Lewis, if you want to really know me, you should probably know my story. It’s not a happy one.”  
“Okay, you can tell me all about it tomorrow, but we should get back in there before they start to think the dancing shadows stole us.”  
But as Leslie started to go inside Lewis grabbed her hand, pulling her so she faced him. He gently rested his hands on her waist, leaned down, and kissed her.  
“No matter how dark your story is, it doesn’t change how I feel about you, Les.”


End file.
